Battle Palette Editing

There are multiple ways of editing Palettes in FE. First will be the way I recommend, the APE method.The GBAGE was a very good way of editing palettes, and I will still have the guide here, but updates to GBAGE have rendered an important tool unusable as it had cause errors in some cases. It is unknown whether it will be making a return in the future.Alternatively there is a Hex method and if for whatever need you have to inflict harm on yourself and you really really wish to use a Hex method, I recommend finding a different guide by searching explicitly for the 'Hex Method' as I only have a truncated version, which is not really at all helpful.

Recommended APE Method:

Ok, so the first thing you want to do is download APE (Advanced Palette Editor). It can be found here.

Now what we will do first is find a Palette to Edit, lets use Eliwoods.So let's open Nightmare and then open the FE7 Battle Palette Reference module. (I'm not sure if FE6 or FE8 have these)Then we scroll through the list and find Eliwood's unpromoted palette offset.

Right we have that. So, now open APE, copy in FD9FAC (ignore the 0x8) and hit load, making sure the LZ77 compression box is ticked.

Now, if all we were doing was changing Eliwood's colours, we would be all set, simply copy the Palette down, change the colours and replace.

Simply use paint or Usenti to find RGB values. ** To be done: Further explain how to change the colours.

Repeat: If you are not changing the class of the character, or you know for sure that the classes both use the same palette order, then you are done here.

Now if you are changing class, I recommend using an already in-use palette of the class you want to change to. Fore example: Lets make Eliwood a Cavalier.First thing we need is the Palette of a cavalier. I'll use Sain's.

Put that in APE, load it and copy it. (ignore the random black splodge.)

The next thing you want to do is go back to Eliwood's Palette as that is what you are changing. So Reload his Palette.

After this you want to click replace. This replaces Eliwood's Palette but is not immediately visible, you must click load again to see the effects.

Great, so now Eliwood has the Palette of a Cavalier. It is at this point that you can use USenti or Paint to find out which colour is which spot on the sprite and edits can be made accordingly.For now, I'm just going to make one of the greens purple, colour editing is done by double clicking the coloured bar in the changed Palette section.

Now we aren't done yet. First we must actually make Eliwood a Cavalier. Do this by going into the Chapter Unit Editor. (I recommend Blazer's Ultimate tutorial for further Information.)

And Finally, Enjoy you Eliwood who looks like Sain with Purple highlights.

Quick GBAGE Method EDIT: This is now unusable (Click Here To Hide/Show Text)

Ok, What you want to do is open GBAGE.After that open the Image control, Palette Control and Colour Control windows.Then let's go to where the battle animations are located. (This changes from different FEs)In FE7, I know that image number 1746 is Eliwood's animation frames. (All other classes can be found upward of 1746)So it should look like this:

Whaaa what's with those colours?We have to find his palette offset.So let's open Nightmare and then open the FE7 Battle Palette Reference module. (I'm not sure if FE6 or FE8 have these)Then we scroll through the list and find Eliwood's unpromoted palette offset.

Right we have that. So, ignoring the 0x8 copy everything afterword, which is FD9FAC, and copy it into GBAGE like so:(Note: "Compressed ROMpalette" must be activated after pasting the offset in.)

Great! Now he looks normal. You may notice in the colour control window there are various palettes. That's for the game to use when that class is on the other team, like in the Link Arena.Using the Colour control window let's change a few things.I decided to give him green hair, and purple clothes.

Ok, now for some reason the Colour Control window is a bit funny. Blue and green swap a bit, so it can take some getting used to. I've also read somewhere that if you don't change all the different palettes in the different rows it won't work. (However I have yet to see that problem)

So after that, test it. If it didn't work, then you may have to change all his alternate palettes.

Truncated Hex Method (Click Here To Hide/Show Text)

Steps:

Run your ROM in VBA.

When your chosen unit is in battle, press ctrl+p to pause the game.

Select "Palette Viewer" from the tools menu. (Different version may have the Palette Viewer located in Tools>Debugger.)

If your unit is on the right side of the battle animation, locate the tenth row of the righter-most palette square.

If your unit is on the left side of the battle animation, locate the eighth row of the righter-most palette square.

Click on the first square of the row. If it says "Ox76F3" Then, jot down "F3 76". The two "bytes", 76 and F3 need to but put in reverse order.

While the method of obtaining the Hex values for the slightly different, and probably faster, that's not really the main focus of the tutorial.

Having not known of that colour program I may indeed use it, however a problem arises when I want to change the class and the palette does not match up. This happens mostly with changing an mounted units Palette to an unmounted Palette. Why is why I recommend taking another palette of the class you want to change to in order to know what order the colours go in in a different classes palette

It may be that my instructions are unclear, and if so I will fix that, but if you're not changing the class of the character there is no reason to do the rest of the steps in the APE method (where another Palette is found and so on). And without those steps, the APE part of the Tutorial becomes the same.

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Posted 22 January 2012 - 08:35 PM

Small problem. In FE 8 every time I change the class the pallet becomes generic. So, This was Seth (Paladin) to a Sniper. So I took Innes' sniper pallet and pasted it onto Seth's. It was still generic!

Anyway to fix this? I hope it's not to much trouble!

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Yes, I should add this to the tutorial.FE8 is slightly (very) different in the way it goes about palettes than FE7.What you need to do is after you edit a characters Palette, If you change the class of the character you also need to tell the game to look for that different class Palette (i.e. Look for a Sniper Palette rather than a Paladin Palette).

In your case, you need to open the Palette Association Editor (Not Part 2*) and then change the only option that isn't None/Generic (Likely to be Paladin) to Sniper. That should then fix your problem.

*Part 2 tells the game what character uses what Palette as you have edited Seth's Palette you do not need to touch this.